Do you know the damnation of the simplest recipes? Like soufflé that is basically quite a simple dish to cook but I always doubt if I make everything right. Syrniki are the same kind of dish. Syrniki, which are thick cottage cheese pancakes, are traditional breakfast in Odessa. Simple yet delicious, it’s the dish that my mother cooks perfectly. Ingredients are quite simple too: cottage cheese, an egg, a few spoons of flour, a little bit of sugar, may be vanilla and raisins. Nothing more, but it took me a few unsuccessful attempts until I cooked it right. The key ingredient is cottage cheese (or it’s “tvaroh” variation in Central and Eastern Europe. Tvaroh is called “syr” in Ukrainian so name “syrniki” shows that the dish is made of syr), which should contain 9% of fat. Cottage cheese should not be too dry or too liquid, otherwise you will not be able to form pancakes. If cottage cheese is too liquid, press the liquid out using a sieve and a spoon. You can substitute cottage cheese with ricotta.
(🇸🇰 slovenský preklad nájdete za anglickým textom)

If you find that the dough is still too liquid, add some extra floor, but be aware, that extra flour( can turn syrniki into gum), will give gum like texture to syrniki, which is wrong because they should be very fluffy.

Ok, let’s finally go to the recipe

Ingredients (makes up to 12 pancakes)

500g cottage cheese

1 egg

6 tbs of flour (plus extra flour for coating)

2 tbs of sugar (use that type of sweetener that you assume the most healthier)

1 tsp of vanilla extract (not necessary)

You can add a few tbs of raisins if you like 🙂

Directions

Remove extra liquid from the cottage cheese (if necessary), put it into a bowl and then stir with a fork to get rid of big lumps.

Add flour, a bitten egg, sugar, vanilla and knead the dough.

Separate the dough into equal parts (45g in my case). Form the pancakes, cover with the flour from both sides and fry on a low heat on a pan with vegetable oil. 2-3 minutes from each side is enough. Be sure that you have enough oil on the pan, add some more with each portion of syrniki.

Serve warm with sour cream (did you have doubts that I end up the recipe with my classical idea “serve with sour cream”?) and fresh fruits.